Federal budget's funding boost for defence spread out over multiple years

The new federal budget promises good things will happen at the Department of National Defence … next year, and hopefully in the years after.

The new fiscal plan, presented Tuesday by Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, marks a subtle but significant shift from what was proposed in last week's long-awaited defence policy, which committed to spending an additional $8.1 billion on defence.

The funding envelope in the budget earmarks the same amount but includes not only the defence department but proposed spending on both the Communications Security Establishment — the country's electronic spy agency — and Global Affairs Canada.

While the overall defence budget is expected to increase marginally in the current fiscal year to $33.8 billion, the internal cost-cutting exercise ordered by the Liberal government means the military can expect roughly $635 million less than what had been forecast in the 2023 federal budget.

Freeland's fiscal plan projects a 30 per cent increase in defence spending in the next fiscal year, bringing it to $44.2 billion.

Next year is when the federal government is expected to begin paying for some big-ticket equipment purchases such as the F-35 fighters, which start arriving in 2026.

Experts ask: Where's the plan?

Sahir Khan, the executive vice-president of the University of Ottawa's Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy, said he would love to see the specifics.

«That's one of the difficulties, I think, with this government is we have seen a lot of aspiration, but not always the perspiration,» said Khan, a former deputy parliamentary budget officer. «What is the plan to achieve the results?»

The politically charged promise to increase Canada's defence spending to 1.76 per cent of the gross domestic